Is this a Vollrath?

[Lewis Downey]

I very fond of this skillet, thanks for your help identifying it.

[Russell Ware]

Not a Vollrath. There would be an '8' inscribed in the top of the handle, and the '8' on the bottom would be in the center.
As far as who did make it, I'm still thinking...

[Mark Ritter]

It looks to me to be a unmarked Favorite or a CHF?

[Mike Goulet]

I picked one up like this a while back with " 8 F"  on it

here's another thread on same skillet

http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1397147189/5#5

[Lewis Downey]

Thanks Russell, Mark, and Mike.

The skillet has a faint rounded-rectangle ghost at 12:00 that measures 66mm wide by 44mm tall. It is very similar in size and placement to ghosting in a picture in the linked thread but is rectangular rather than piece-slice shape. I tried to photograph it but could not get the right combination of light and camera angle. It looks like there is the top line of a second rectangular area below that but the bottom is distorted and that all I can make out.

It's a spinner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JNmXA17HPo

[Cheryl Watson]

Lewis,
To imbed your video, look at the pics below:

1. Click on Media Button (circled)
2. Insert the address of the video as shown in pic 2

And Voila




[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JNmXA17HPo[/media]

[Valerie Johnson]

I don't want to hijack this thread but can a spinner like this be fixed, Can the piece be turned upside down and heated to a temp that allows the cast iron to droop the other way, Yes I know that doing so will cause discoloration to the metal but if it is basically unusable anyway what's to lose

[Lewis Downey]

Cheryl, thank you. 

Valerie, thanks for asking that question. I've been wondering a similar thing, but it isn't useless as-is. Even with the bulge at the bottom it cooked an egg just fine on our gas stove top. I thought about making a 15-second movie of an egg sliding around on it. The focus of this forum is collecting. Speaking as a newbie, I doubt this specific skillet had much cred as a collectible even before the bottom warped. I'll wager nothing good happens to that collectibility by reshaping it.  If the job were done perfectly it might be more useful on an electric range. Maybe if the question were asked to a forum dedicated to cooking on ceramic cooktops, the answer would be different from asking here.  FWIW, the skillet is very light and feels great in the hand; if it could be made more useful that hardly seems like a *bad* thing. I won't be doing anything to reshape it but am still curious.

[Valerie Johnson]

I think slowly heating the cooking surface while applying pressure on the bottom with a press might help straighten it out, If it were mine and I wanted to straighten it I would use my hydraulic press and set it up so that the skillet was facing upside down and I would heat up the interior cooking surface and apply pressure downward on the outside face of the bottom, I would do this over a course of several days first heating then applying pressure and allowing to cool while the pressure was still set, I would not relieve the pressure and would heat again and apply more pressure from the hydraulic press let cool and repeat, I would use a straight edge to gauge my progress and I would be very careful not to put excessive pressure or heat.

[Cheryl Watson]

This has been a much discussed (and attempted) topic, and I am not aware of any successful method of removing warp from a piece. 

[Tom Neitzel]

This has been a much discussed (and attempted) topic, and I am not aware of any successful method of removing warp from a piece. 

We did have a member a long time ago that did successfully take the warp out of a spinner, but it took a lot of heat, an industrial hydraulic press and time.  Nothing that you could do at home.

[Valerie Johnson]

but it took a lot of heat, an industrial hydraulic press and time.  Nothing that you could do at home.

I have a 30 ton hydraulic shop press and an assortment of torches from an old Kerosene blow torch to a propane torch to an acetylene/oxygen torch and if I ever run across a spinner I think I am going to give it a try,
I do not think it is so much a matter of how hot and how much pressure but a series of acts, These items became warped over a period of time on home cooking stoves with no pressure so in my mind it is a matter of slowly reversing the process.

[Matthew Stockinger]

I have a CHF that is similar. Has the same rectangle as well as a ghosted  P/N and Letter A. The P/N is 1432. The two is only visible in some lighting. By my best guess it was originally a #8 Wardway made by wagner and sold from Montgomerey(sp?) Wards. Is this rectangle similar?

[Matthew Stockinger]

You have to look hard for the P/N and letter A. There are some letters visible in the box. I always thought it said STANDARD until I saw that the WARDWAY matched the placement and size of my mystery box. One of my first pieces and I still love to use it. My handle is not shown in the pic, but looks like yours. The only thing that doesn't match up is the handle. Here is a crappy pic of the wardway maybe there were different handles use or they were modified by CHF?

[Matthew Stockinger]

Now that I looked at the other thread Mike posted a link to, it appears that the semi pie shape is the ghosting of the CHF logo. Pattern acquired by yet another company? Neat history on ghosted pieces IMO. I treasure them above others for some reason.